Panasonic Lumix S1 – Test Shots

Landscapes

Ever since I got a taste for making photographs originally in black and white and see this world through shades of grey, I always craved to buy a camera which can do justice to such images by revealing all the shades of grey. I knew, only a full frame camera with high dynamic range could have helped me try such artistic pursuit.

Just to give it a try, I shot these images originally in black and white to see how excellent a dynamic range I can achieve with Lumix S1. Thankfully, I was not disappointed and the shots did reveal a wider range of shades of grey between pure white and pure black. As this was a quick test, I am still looking for better images with portraiture and weddings.

While I do not aspire to become a product photographer, I do love clicking pictures of my watches, being an avid watch collector. This time I tried to be creative with the background as I was already bored with cliched white (or black) background that photographers mostly use for product photography.

I kept the lighting very simple and used a continuous light source (Harison Quadlux Mark II) along with a reflector. As I needed to keep the aperture small (F 11.0) for a sharp and crisp image of the dial, I compensated for the exposure loss with a much slower speed (1/8 s), keeping my ISO constant at 100. Needless to say, I could not have achieved this shutter speed without a steady tripod (Vanguard Alta 263AP).

As I had already clicked all the watches from my earlier collection, I chose to click the ones I had never photographed. With some basic Adobe Lightroom adjustments, I was able to achieve the desired results. One major problem that I was able to solve with Lumix S1 was the ability to keep the focus intact on the dial by a simple touch on the screen.